Ha ha!

You certainly never know what movie he'll review next!

Friday, 13 September 2013

Burl review's 'Salem's Lot! (1979)

Bluh bluh, it’s Burl, here to tell you all about the vampires!
Yes, I’m reviewing ‘Salem’s Lot today
– the full length 1979 mini series, which I came across on VHS recently, and of course which was sequelized by none other than Larry Cohen in A Return to 'Salem's Lot! Ha ha,
I got a whole box of VHS tapes through the kindness of a family member, all of
them like new, and this double cassette was among them! (There was also a
double cassette special edition of Hellraiser,
and naturally Children of the Corn
was in there too!)

Anyway, I was one of the millions of youngsters terrified by
‘Salem’s Lot on its original airing!
At least I think that’s when I saw it, though I would have been pretty young! I
remember some of the key scenes, like the kid whose younger brother appeared
floating at the window (extra scary for me because I had – well, still have! –
a younger brother of the same type!) and Mike the gravedigger jumping down into
the grave and opening up the coffin! But the scariest scene for me was when the
two guys (Mike and somebody else, I think) are transporting the big crate which
we know contains the Nosferatu-esque
hemogobbler Mr. Barlow!

Ha ha, it was all pretty scary at the time, and while it’s
not so much any more, it remains a creepy and well-done television movie, which
feels a lot quicker than its three hour running time would indicate! The story,
for those who require it, has a writer returning to the small Maine town he was
born in (ha ha, yes, as a matter of fact this is a Stephen King story!) and investigating the creepy house he
once got spooked by as a child! Coincidentally, a vampire and his friend have
just moved into that very house, and soon the townspeople are looking a mite
pastier than before! Ha ha!

The picture was directed by Tobe Hooper, the man who later
brought us such gems as The Funhouse
and Lifeforce, and who at that time
had just been fired from directing The Dark! He does an okay job on what must have been a tight schedule and low
budget! The real draw, at least nowadays, is the cast, specifically the great
James “Bigger Than Life” Mason as the
vampire’s friend! Ha ha, he’s a lot like the handyman in Fright Night, in that he isn’t himself a vampire, but appears to
have some superstrength and possibly other powers as well! And both of those
fellows go down hard as they’re descending a staircase in a menacing fashion!
Very similar scenes, ha ha!

Also in the cast we find Bonnie Bedelia, the lady from the Die Hard pictures, as the writer’s
ill-fated ladyfriend; Geoffrey “The Fat
Black Pussycat” Lewis as the ill-fated gravedigger; George “Massage Parlor Hookers” Dzundza as the
ill-fated cuck*ld; Fred “Moving Violations” Willard as the ill-fated realtor; Ed “Exorcist III” Flanders as an ill-fated doctor; Kenneth “Dune” McMillan as the surprisingly not
ill-fated town constable; and a bunch of fine old-timers like Lew Ayres, Marie
Windsor and Elisha Cook Jr., who also battled Blacula and is of course well known from his role as Grandpa in The Trouble With Grandpa! Phew, that’s a
lot of actors! And I haven’t even mentioned scary-faced Reggie Nalder, who
plays the ghoulish head vampire, or Hutch himself, who plays the rather bland hero!

Ha ha, that was one of the big changes from the King book
that improved things, I thought – making the vampire more of a hideous
bloodsucking animal than the urbane, sarcastic man-‘bout-town he is in the
novel! It’s sort of the opposite of Christine,
where they got rid of the backseat corpse of Roland D. LeBay! But ‘Salem’s Lot goes for the gusto with
this great vampire; and it also pushes the violence about as far as it could go
in a 1979 TV movie!

It’s an entertaining and engaging watch, a little chintzy
and flat here and there, and too willing to let loose threads flap around
everywhere; but overall it’s not too bad! I’m going to give ‘Salem’s Lot two and a half glowing
bottles of holy water!